Dokument #1316964
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Autor)
As per our telephone conversation on 18
June 1990, please find attached a copy of the section on Individual
Rights and Guarantees of the Constitution of Costa Rica, as
published in Constitutions of the Countries of the World: Costa
Rica, (New York: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1982). Article 33
states that "[a]ll persons are equal before the law and no
discrimination may be made against human dignity".
The Embassy of Costa Rica in Ottawa stated
in a telephone communication with the IRBDC on 19 June 1990 that
all citizens of Costa Rica, regardless of their country of birth,
enjoy the same rights and guarantees in Costa Rica. Foreigners
residing in Costa Rica under a permanent residence or immigrant's
visa enjoy the same rights and guarantees as citizens, but are not
allowed to vote.
Reports on the Costa Rican government
neglecting protection for those Costa Rican citizens who were born
abroad could not be found among the sources currently available to
the IRBDC. The only recent reference to some form of discrimination
in Costa Rica was found in the Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices for 1989 (Washington: U.S. Department of State,
1990), p. 522, which indicates that in 1989 there were "some
problems of de facto, not de jure, discrimination against women,
blacks, and Indians". However, no specific reference to lack of
legal or government protection and/or guarantees for these or other
individuals could be found in the report. The same source adds in
page 523 that "access to [legal] counsel is guaranteed and honoured
in practice".
Regarding the current or recent human
rights situation in Costa Rica, the book Costa Rica: A Country
Guide (Albuquerque: Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource
Centre, 1989), p. 21, gives the following summary:
"With the ascent of the Central America
Peace Plan and international attention focused on President Arias,
the human-rights climate in Costa Rica improved noticeably. CODEHU
(Human Rights Committee of Costa Rica) noted that Costa Ricans
could, for the first time, talk about human-rights problems without
being labelled "unpatriotic". Police roundups were suspended and
arbitrary detentions by immigration authorities became less
frequent. Nonetheless, CODEHU charged that the broadly defined
human rights of Costa Ricans were being violated daily. In addition
to the deteriorating state of prisoner rights, the organization
pointed to such continuing problems as: the lack of freedom of
expression due to rightwing control of the media, the government's
failure to honour workers' collective-bargaining rights, the
worsening economic situation for the poor, the government's failure
to guarantee the basic needs of its citizens, and the repression of
campesino and worker organizations, particularly in rural
areas."